


Working at Your Own Grave

by tameimpala



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode: s14e11 Damaged Goods, Gen, Post-Episode: s14e10 Nihilism, Season/Series 14, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, ma'lik box, post-episode: 14e12 Prophet and Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 15:23:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17624903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tameimpala/pseuds/tameimpala
Summary: He shut the book in horror. It’s awful details of welded metal sinking to the bottom of the ocean bed as he sunk with it. Would the salt-water leak in slowly or fast? Maybe it would drench his clothes and steal his breath whilst Michael screamed and raged inside his head, beating himself bloody against the door that held him until it finally came loose with such explosive force that it would practically render him brain-dead.“You’d be nothing but blood and bone.”Dean struggles with the horror of building his own prison and accepting his fate.Set across s14e10, e11 and e12





	Working at Your Own Grave

* * *

#  ________________

  


  


**I**

  


They kept telling him he was strong. But apparently not strong enough to hold an archangel.

Billie had just appeared to him. Death herself, handing him a black book that contained details of the only version of his death that wouldn’t result in the world burning. 

She had handed him instructions on how to build his own coffin. 

He shut the book in horror. It’s awful details of welded metal sinking to the bottom of the ocean bed as he sunk with it. Would the salt-water leak in slowly or fast? Maybe it would drench his clothes and steal his breath whilst Michael screamed and raged inside his head, beating himself bloody against the door that held him until it finally came loose with such explosive force that it would practically render him brain-dead.

  


_“You’d be nothing but blood and bone.”_

  


Dean would drown at the bottom of the sea as Michael took over his body once again, only to find himself trapped forever inside an inescapable watery grave.

He hid the book under his bed, just another monster lurking below him in the darkness. 

Dean shut his eyes but sleep ever came. The banging of the door burst through his consciousness every time he tried, and the knowledge of the book niggled at the parts of his brain undisturbed by Michael.

The bunker wasn’t quiet anymore either. He could hear distant voices coming from the war room. The muffled tones sounded as though they were strategizing a plan that he didn’t know about and wasn’t a part of. They were strangers to him, these hunters, and he couldn't help but feel they were invading on what little turf he had left.

The knocking had started again, softer than before. It wasn’t until he heard his own name uttered from behind his bedroom door that he realized it wasn’t coming from his head.

“Dean?” Asked a voice that belonged to his brother. 

Sam had obviously come to check on him before he turned in for the night. The voices had gone too.

“Dean?” Repeated Sam and the door handle began to turn slowly. He knew his younger brother meant well, but Dean couldn’t face him. Not now.

“I’m fine Sammy- goodnight.” He said emotionlessly as he stared at the door handle, willing it to turn back. It froze for a second and Dean could sense Sam’s hesitation. 

Thankfully it turned back into place, and Dean let out the breath he was holding.

“Alright… night Dean.” Said Sam, his tone sounding like one he would use if he was talking to a traumatised child.

  


Footsteps retreated, and the bunker fell silent. But Dean soon prayed for the noise to return when the banging of the door returned.

 

  


  


**II**

  


He read about his own death over and over again. Each time naively hoping to find a different ending. But his fate stayed the same every time, and the more he read it… the more it felt like his only option.

Dean was all about pro-active measures. He wasn’t about to let his mind crumble away to the intense beating Michael was giving it. The noises from the archangel were like bursts of thunder in his head, reminding him of what he’d caged up. Of what he’d foolishly thought he could hold.

If this was his only option then he had to do it now, before his defences could fall.

He couldn’t build what he needed here, Sam was too close. And the bunker was just that, a bunker. How would he get a 7ft box out of here without anyone noticing? 

There were also people he had to say goodbye to, and others who he just couldn’t face.

He thought of his mother staying at Donna’s remote cabin, he figured that was as good a place as any to work on his tomb. 

So Dean set about collecting books that he needed that were thankfully kept in a store room rather than the library, which was where Sam inevitably was the next day.

There sat the familiar sight of his brother at the table surrounded by open books with no information that could help them with their very specific problem. But Sam still didn’t give up, and as Dean told him, he loved him for it. But he would stop at nothing to save him, and wouldn't listen to reason.

He had to do this alone.

The small hug he gave Sam was a last-minute impulse that Dean couldn’t help. He knew it would set off at least some of Sam’s alerts but it was worth it.

  


“Take care Sammy.” He told the younger man, hoping with all his heart that Sam would listen to not only those words but also to the ones he left unsaid.

  


  


 

**III**

  


“Okay Sam. Let’s go home.”

Yes. Dean caved, only a little, for the only one who could talk him out of locking himself inside the ma’lak box that he’d slaved over. He could see what the knowledge of what would happen to him was doing to his brother and for now, the fight went out of him. 

The older man’s jaw ached from the desperate punch Sam had thrown, he could already feel a deep purple bruise developing. It hadn’t fazed Dean much, after all Sam had just said how much he’d copied and learnt from him. How many times had Dean drove his fist into Sam’s face to hammer home a point? Not that it was healthy, then again, nothing they ever did was.

The two hunters and the angel retreated back to the Impala. Both Sam and Cas avoided looking at the trailer that toed Dean’s would-be/could-soon-be coffin behind them. Dean on the other hand had no such luxury. Its presence could be seen in every mirror in the car, following them down the dark road back to Lebanon.

Cas remained silent in the backseat, staring out of the window wistfully, whilst Sam seemed to glance at Dean every so often before furrowing his brow and looking away. 

Dean knew Sam wasn't going to to apologize, after all he’d gotten the outcome he’d wanted. Maybe his brother just wanted to explain that this was the right decision and it was all for the best. Dean was sure Sam saw it that way, but he wasn’t in Dean’s position and he wasn’t the one with an archangel pounding down a door in his mind.

“You- you want any music?” Asked Sam finally, his hand reaching out for the radio. There was a slight shake to it that made Dean’s face soften a fraction.

He shook his head, “I’m good.”

They all knew he was as far from that four-letter word as a person could get, but Sam didn’t fight him on it. After all, he’d already won his battle.

  


Dean drove on into the night, his eyes fixed with focus on the road before him highlighted by the two beams of his baby’s headlights. For miles there were precious few other headlights that appeared either behind him or beside him. 

Eventually a red neon sign appeared in the near distance, hovering above the bare trees.

 _Gas_ , it read as Dean drove closer. He began to slow down as he approached the small fill up station and took the left turn to pull next to one of the rusty gas pumps.

“Need any help?” Asked Cas from the backseat, slightly startling Dean with his clear unwavering voice.

Dean glanced in the rear mirror to see the angel looking back at him with his head tilted at a slight angle. 

“I got it.” He answered and noticed Sam had fallen asleep against the window, “Just watch over him.”

He stepped out of the car and closed the door to hear that familiar creak. He could easily grab some oil to fix it, but he never did. The noise was comforting and reminded him of the car's long and storied life.

The night air was fresh and still, Dean breathed it in and closed his eyes for a second. However they flew back open instantly when the horrifying visions of his bloodied fingers scrapping away at iron as he screamed for Sam, getting more desperate and breathless as he struggled in his underwater tomb, ran rapidly through his mind.

“You’re here.” He said quietly to himself, raising a clammy hand to his head and raking it through his hair. “It’s all you.”

He felt Castiel’s watchful eyes on him from the car and decided to head inside the gas station’s store. It was a relatively rundown and outdated place, the bell rang when Dean entered and there wasn’t much selection in the way of food or supplies at all. A heavy lidded kid sat behind a dirty sheet of plastic-looking glass which was probably half-heartedly installed to deter people from trying to rob the place.

Dean roamed through one of the aisles until he came to the back of the store and noticed a door with ‘restroom’ written on it. He looked over at the cashier, who had turned his attention onto a magazine, before walking into the room and locking the door behind him.

The hunter placed his hand on the door and lent against it. Annoyance and anger were staring to eat away at his insides. 

Sam and Cas thought he'd been talked out of it burying himself and Michael. They thought they'd pulled him off the ledge. But he was still firmly on it- toes dangling off the end.

He let go of the door and turned around to face the bleak grimy bathroom. Dean staggered towards the sink and ran the water to wash his face, hoping it would help rid him of the dead expression that he wore when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above him.

It didn’t. He still looked exhausted and lifeless when he raised his head again. Instead the hunter spotted the red mark on his jaw Sam had given him, all whilst asking him why he didn’t believe in them.

The punch hadn’t hurt but the words had. Dean didn’t believe in much, and what little he did had whittled down to almost nothing these last few years. He’d lived too long, seen too much, to gain back any hope he’d lost along the way.

Couldn’t they all see how much he’d done? 

Dean knew for a fact they couldn’t, because he was the support. It had been that way since John was alive. People lent and lent on him and didn’t notice the cracks. They only notice when the support finally breaks under all the pressure and the people left in the rumble would stare in disbelief wondering _how could this have happened? You were so strong, how were you suffering too?_

Dean stared down at his own refection and could hear the distant pounding of the door and Michael’s desperate howls. He was going to break again, and he didn’t think he could trust his family to fix him this time.

“Dean!” Called his brother from the other side of the door, who'd obviously woke up, as he knocked loudly, “Hey, what are you doing in there?”

The hunter cleared his throat and tried to compose himself, “It’s a bathroom Sam, what do you think?”

“Cas said you’d been in here a while.” Replied Sam as Dean walked towards the door and pulled it open to find Sam standing there with a lock pick concealed in his hand and Cas stood closely behind, presumably there to blow up the door if they couldn’t get in.

“I’m not a flight risk you know.” Said Dean as he walked past them, “If I was going to do what you thought I was, why would I leave without the box?”

Sam quickly followed him through the store and smiled awkwardly at the cashier, who didn’t look phased in the slightest. The bell rang again as Dean opened the main door and stepped outside. It rang twice more to alert him of the exits of both his brother and his friend.

“Dean listen-” Sam began, sounding as though he was going to layout some ground rules and Dean couldn’t take it.

“I don’t want to hear okay?” He said as he turned to his brother, “I meant what I said about the end, and what you’ll need to do.”

  


Dean walked to the Impala, keys held tightly in his fist.

  


They had taken his cards away from him, but he would still play them when the time came.

  


**Author's Note:**

> I'd been writing a little after each of these episodes because they gave me so much to think about! I don't think I've wrote a short coda style fic set in an airing season since s10.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this little divergence, thank you for reading!
> 
> Also I'm 10 chapters into a dark purgatory fic atm, so please give that a read if you like- it's almost completed!


End file.
